Apple rejects order to unlock gunman's phone

[Fzero]

I'll just put this here...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-35594245


...and let the battle of right/wrong commence

 

[ekianjo]

I don't like Apple but they are doing the right thing to complain here.

 

[Swordfish II]

Yep, I support that. If they give in pretty soon we would end up with NSA style surveillance with the exploit they create.

 

[rygD]

Based only on reading the thread title, good job on their part.

 

[kuru]

It's the type of access demanded that Apple perceive as dangerous. I can imagine that just extracting and handing files to the FBI would cause less concern.

 

[DaMummy]

Can't remember the last time I supported an Apple decision. Good on them.

 

[Plume]

Apple joined PRISM in 2012.
As always, Apple is doing whatever is popular. Nothing new.

 

[comradekingu]

He was a gunman first, and a apple user second.

Apple counting backwards from potato.

 

[Grench]

The most bothersome part of this is that Apple is acting as if they actually could build software to bypass the encryption.

There may not be a back door directly into the devices now, but I have no doubt that there will be buildings full of programmers in India, Russia and China trying to figure it out now that the technical feasibility has been admitted..

 

[Plume]

Well, there is definitively a backdoor built in the device. It is called iOS.
Who might say that there is no process with root-privileges running which could update the OS if it receives the right message ?

 

[Klumpen]

Apple probably doesn't have a way to access it and uses this to gain some positive light for a change, who knows?
This aside: Some hacker has extracted all kinds of private porn vids and pics of several celebrities not too long ago and the government can't even hack a phone they got their hands on? I'm actually glad.

 

[levi]

Well, apple could probably spend some money on paying devs to code review the encryption code, and find some undisclosed corner cases which could be used to access encrypted files, but as soon as they know of such a hole they then have to defend that information against unauthorised disclosure by ex employees, for example.

That's not to say that given the current focus on crypto security after their and others screw-ups, they're not already paying a small contingent of devs to review the code to fix bugs before they're more widely known about, but to find a hole in the time frame needed for this investigation you'd need to pay a lot more devs to get involved probably, making it harder to control the information once it's been discovered.

On the other hand, given apple have the ability to send a remote update to its handsets, it could perhaps develop cracked crypto libs then upload them as part of an OS update to the targetted phone. That would probably need less people working on it, but again you'd have to be sure you deleted all the cracked libs after you've used them. It depends how the crypt uses the passphrase to unlock the key in that scenario, I think.

In less speculative news: http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35595840

 

[WizardStan]

Apple doesn't have a way to unlock it, but they do have a trusted certificate which would allow them to update the OS so that brute forcing the password would be possible.

 

[comradekingu]

Apple probably doesn't have a way to access it and uses this to gain some positive light for a change, who knows?
This aside: Some hacker has extracted all kinds of private porn vids and pics of several celebrities not too long ago and the government can't even hack a phone they got their hands on? I'm actually glad.

Of course they can, they just cant use it now that apple has said it doesn't share.

Plot twist, they are wilfully sharing and just playing along to the ploy of future gunmen thinking that iOS is for them.

Btw, apple has a whole cloud thing on their own servers with user data.

 

[ZXDunny]

Apple are being ordered to build a custom firmware that doesn't extend the length of time you have to wait between attempts to guess the pin code, and to allow pin codes to be sent remotely via a physical cable. They do not have the keys to the device, and so are being ordered to make it feasible to brute force it.

People have been saying that the phone will be sent to Apple because the govt has said that Apple will retain their ownership of the code, but that's just referring to the source used to build the firmware. Apple are saying no because the firmware they supply is unlikely to stay in the govt's hands for very long - it will be leaked, and then made available to any and all black hats that want to examine it for clues to breaking security in other phones.

I'm kinda with Apple on this one, but I question their motives.

 

[blimpsgo180]

My (very intelligent) uncle got published in the Washington Post talking about this story.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...2910a0-d65b-11e5-a65b-587e721fb231_story.html

 

[WizardStan]

it will be leaked

That shouldn't really make a difference. Hypothetically speaking, they should be able to sign the "new" firmware against the IMEI so that it can run on only that phone. Even if it leaks, unless the cracker can sign it against arbitrary IMEIs it can't be applied to any other phone, and if they CAN sign against arbitrary IMEIs then we're fucked anyway.

 

[Wally]

Apple Says Apple ID Password on Shooter's iPhone Changed in Government Possession, Losing Access to Data

Heh.. the FBI screwed up, so they want Apple to fix it? No.

 

[iprice]

Can't they get Garcia from "Criminal Minds" to do it? She's a total FBI genius and ALWAYS cracks the case wide open with just one breadcrumb. Surely the FBI have such people?

 

[levi]

Apple Says Apple ID Password on Shooter's iPhone Changed in Government Possession, Losing Access to Data

Ah, so that explains why they can't access the backups (kind of - does a password change wipe the cloud backup or something?). But that doesn't stop them creating a build that's specially tied to the devices IMEI that allows them to brute force the pin code, which is what I at least thought there were asking for before your post.